Torment
by tiffywiffyfluffykitty
Summary: After being captured on a solo mission, Lucy is forced to endure countless torturous experiments, waiting for someone to save her. Will Natsu come in time before she finally succumbs to death?


**Torment**

She huddled in the corner, softly crying. This was the only time she could cry to herself: the point between the end of one experiment and another. During the entire day, she had only three breaks between the horrible experiments: breakfast, water and bathroom break, and the measly little mound of mush they called dinner.

"N-N-N-Natsu…" She cried softly.

So long ago, several people had captured her while she was on a solo job and took her to this hidden laboratory where they did horrible experiments on her day after day. No one from Fairy Tail had saved her yet and after several months, she had lost all hope that they will ever find her.

The door to her windowless cell clanked and opened and the men in white coats came in.

"N-No!" Lucy cried. "I don't want to! Leave me alone!"

The men bore down on her, reaching out with their white rubber gloves and as they did, Lucy screamed once and that scream echoed eerily down the plain white corridor.

* * *

When they dragged her limp body back to her dark cell, she appeared to be dead. Today was ruthless: the men in white coats had created an endless maze for her full of deadly traps. What they were testing from her, she didn't know. All she knew was that she had been zapped with lightning bolts even more painful than Laxus' thunder lacrima, submerged in boiling water hotter than Juvia's body when she was enraged, and walked through fire pits full of flames that were even more scorching than Natsu's dragon fire.

She moaned as they dumped her on the floor. One of them left a cup of water by her head and a plastic container of tasteless mush before leaving and slamming the thick iron door behind them.

After what seemed like hours, she finally dragged herself to the cup of water which she pulled towards her and tipped it into her mouth, sloshing down most of it onto the floor before painfully dragging herself onto the moldy mattress and pulled the threadbare blanket over her shoulders for several short hours of uneasy sleep.

Just before she slept, a single tear dripped out of the corner of her eye as she thought, _Natsu, why aren't you coming to save me yet?_

* * *

Lucy ran, huffing, through the white corridors once again. She shrieked as she ran through a seemingly harmless passage only to step on a trap and activate a series of blue electric bolts that jolted her as she ran past.

"N…No… more," she panted. "Please…"

It was at that moment that she fell into a vat of thick sludge that sucked her down to her waist until it closed her head as she screamed.

* * *

A week later, she sobbed quickly evaporating tears as the men in white coated a stinging liquid on her legs then made her walk through a pit of fire. The liquid, whatever it was, sizzled away and left second and third degree burns on her legs and ankles. When she finished, she crumpled to the ground, half-dead with exhaustion, pain, and smoke inhalation.

They didn't give her an oxygen mask, but examined her legs, poking and prodding them with sharp objects while she slipped in and out of consciousness. Eventually, she succumbed into the darkness.

* * *

The next day, they put her in a mechanized room where they cut her over and over again while she shrieked with agony, her blood running out of her cuts in ruby red rivers.

Within four minutes, she fell into unconsciousness.

* * *

The night after that, she found herself fighting for breath in her cell after a day of gas inhalation as her eyes dripped tears once again.

_Natsu… where are you? Why aren't you here to save me?_

* * *

The man in the iron gray suit and equally cold eyes touched the glass softly as if caressing her skin.

"Don't worry, Lucy," the man said. "Soon, all your troubles will be over."

Her eyes followed him as he left the room and closed her eyes, feeling terribly exhausted as she floated in the pale green-yellow liquid.

* * *

She was so tired…

Lack of rest, the constant torture and pain, and malnutrition had caused her to lose a full twenty or so pounds and she could feel the exhaustion dragging her down each day until she could sense the coming relief of death on the near horizon.

She had given up on Natsu coming. Two men in white coats had mentioned that Lucy had stayed here for a full year with no sign of Fairy Tail anywhere.

They were never going to rescue her, weren't they?

She closed her eyes.

She was just so tired…

* * *

She was woken by a loud explosion, running footsteps, and shouts, muffled through the liquid and thick glass.

She opened her eyes slowly. For the past few hours she felt death creeping closer and closer and was just about to embrace it when she was jolted out of her reverie.

"Make sure he doesn't get anywhere near the room!" she heard a man's voice yell dimly.

There was a burst of orange and red that looked so amazingly familiar that her eyes widened a fraction of an inch even though they felt so heavy. Her limbs, though she couldn't feel them anymore, twitched as she saw a familiar shade of salmon…

Natsu had come at last.

She saw his gorgeous dark eyes widen with shock, anger, and sadness as he beheld her in the cylindrical tank, a flimsy tattered shift barely covering her, scars and bruises and cuts and scraps covering every inch of her body, her ribs jutting out prominently and her limbs reduced to thin sticks. Her eyes dull and lifeless as her wispy hair floated around her in a translucent cloud.

He roared with fury and despair and launched a pillar of fire at her from his mouth.

The glass cracked.

She was free.

She slid down with the liquid, not even bothering to protect herself from the shards of glass around her as she flopped limply onto the now wet linoleum floor.

Natsu was at her side in an instant, picking her up and holding her close, his eyes crying crystal tears. "Luce," he was saying. "Lucy, can you hear me? Luce, I'm so, so, so sorry we didn't come sooner."

She summoned her strength. "Why… so late?"

"We had no idea where to look. The village you went to for the mission disappeared. It never existed in the first place. After that, we searched all of Fiore for you." He gently kissed her wasted forehead. "Wendy's here. She's going to heal you. Just hold on alright?"

But she could feel herself getting lighter and swore she saw stars, bright twinkling little diamonds of light in a sea of blue-black velvet. She felt a little of her strength returning and managed to shake her head. "No… no time left…" She fixed her eyes with his. "I'm… fading away even now."

He shook his head furiously at that. "Don't give up, Luce. Not now. Not after we've come so far." His tears splashed on her face and he clumsily wiped them away. "You're going to be alright."

Her vision was darkening but how come she could see the stars even more clearly now? "I'm glad… I got to see you…one last time…"

"Luce!" His voice was a high pitched wail. "Luce! Don't go! Stay! Stay with me! Don't—" He broke off as he sobbed.

"I love you..."

Then she closed her eyes for the last time and disappeared into the starry heavens.

**The End**

* * *

**This was an idea I had for a novel but decided to water it down and turn it into a NaLu fanfiction. Hope you enjoy :) Review please!**


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